Sunday Inspiration: Making a difference

I really love to find stories about individuals or groups who are making a difference by coming up with ingenious and effective ideas.

Recently I ran across an article in our local Sarasota paper that renewed my faith in humanity. New Life Village is a community of retired people in Tampa, Florida, who volunteer to be surrogate grandparents and safe mentors for foster care children who are victims of abuse or neglect. The volunteers give the children a safe and supportive environment that helps them make the transition to adoption or a return to their parents.

Here’s the beauty of it: the volunteers receive not only the satisfaction of making a significant difference in the lives of the children they help, but they also receive reduced rent for the the town homes they live in, which are shared by other volunteers, thus giving them a village of people who are caring for foster children.

Isn’t that brilliant? A win-win for everyone, including our world. I would like to see ideas like this spread across our planet, wouldn’t you?

Do you know of other grassroots groups in your community that are making a difference? Please pass them along if you do so we can all be inspired.

I thought about When We Were Sisters when I saw this article. There are so many ways to tackle the problems of children who need families, and in this case, the many people who wish they could help them.

Hi Emilie, it’s refreshing to hear about people helping people, from your example down to a small one that impresses me. One of our local grocers locks his carts and you pay a quarter to unlock one and when you return it you get your money back. Now it seems we’re in competition to see who can give their cart to someone just coming in and tell them to “pay it forward” and/or being on the receiving end of the same kindness. This came to mind just this past weekend when one of our vehicles was again dinged up pretty good from irresponsible shoppers who leave their carts in parking spaces or let them roll into parked cars. Unfortunately, it’s not advisable to say anything to the guilty party, if you even see the “accident” happen. I suppose that’s more a pet peeve than something that will actually make a difference in someone’s life. But it’s off my chest now. I can let it go! 😉